RUME 27
2025
Alexandria, Virginia
Addressing Equity and Identity in a General Education Mathematics Course
Page: 1327
Motivated by the goal of reducing equity gaps in achievement at a predominately white, public land grant research university, a team of mathematicians designed and implemented research- based strategies for promoting equitable instruction in a coordinated multi-section general education terminal mathematics course. To assess the impact of the course on students’ mathematics identity, we utilized a pre- and post-survey adapted from an instrument developed by Hazari et al. (2020) which included scales to measure the constructs of sense of belonging, interest, recognition, and utility/competence. Preliminary analysis revealed that the means of student responses changed in the desired direction from pre- to post-test, with sense of belonging showing the greatest, statistically significant change. Initial quantitative and qualitative findings suggest the instruction tasks described here, which are relatively simple and inexpensive to implement, can have a significant impact on improving mathematical identity for students in a general education mathematics course.